


this same flower that smiles to-day

by Anonymous



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Kink Meme, Shippy Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-04 14:40:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/711864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gather ye rosebuds while ye may<br/>Old Time is still a-flying</p><p>Prompt: take a clearly happy scene (baking, picking flowers, etc) and turn it into a big pile of angst and sadness!</p>
            </blockquote>





	this same flower that smiles to-day

It was not the first of May - there had been unavoidable business - but it was still early in the month, on a fine, warm day, when they set out from Paris. Combeferre thought it late enough into the growing season that by looking at the fields he might guess whether food would continue to remain short come harvest; Jean Prouvaire was in a pastoral mood that neither Paris' gardens nor his own flowers had sufficed; Courfeyrac - well. It was his money that paid the carriage and his fancy to quit the city for a day or so and see whether the country had suddenly grown into the odes that Jehan heaped onto it so unstintingly.

There had been rain the day before, a gentle soaking that had left the ground soft but not muddy and the grass alongside the road brilliant green. This met with Combeferre's approval; he had, he said, been recently making a study of how drought and the following deprivations affected social and political activity - and with the others' as well, as it meant their journey was a pleasant one.

When they at last reached the field Combeferre had in mind as his test case, Prouvaire delighted to find that it was set off from the others by a large hedge tangled through with wild roses. While the others poked and prodded and made notes over the young wheat - which, emerald and lush, he admitted was a beauty in itself - he went to go admire the unexpected flowers.

They were a sweet pink, fading to white around the edges in a strikingly antique way; he leaned closer, into the cool shadows. A few had fully opened, blossoms the size of his palm splayed open wide and welcoming; their perfume was subtle and delicate, a dusty, dreamy scent. He plucked one with the help of his pocketknife and backed out of the hedge. In the sunlight, the petals had a beautiful velvet sheen where the pink blurred into ivory, like the fine skin of a woman's wrist drawn silk-smooth over vein--

"It blushes like you do, Jehan," Courfeyrac laughed from behind him.

Prouvaire squeaked and nearly dropped the flower in his surprise; when he caught it, it was by a thorn in the ball of his thumb. _"Oh!"_ he said, and switching the rose to his other hand, examined his injury. The thorn had been rather large; there was already a trickle curling down his thumb and across his palm that had almost reached his wrist. He smeared it away to keep it from his shirtsleeve, then stuck the offending digit in his mouth.

Courfeyrac took the rose from him. "I'm sorry," he said. "If I'd known you were doing battle with such a monster, I'd have given more warning!" With his own knife, he stripped the thorns from the stem.

Prouvaire's thumb had stopped bleeding; he reclaimed the flower and smiled it away. "No harm done," he said. "But you might help me against the rest of the host, if you've no more to do for science and can turn your hand to art."

By the time Combeferre finished his notes and joined them, they'd gathered an armful of flowers already: some full-bloomed as the one that had bitten Prouvaire, some shy rosebuds, most caught in the delicate, half-furled stage between. There had been no more blood drawn, though Prouvaire's baggy waistcoat had come out the worst in a battle with the hedge and lost a few threads in the fray. Still, when Combeferre saw them he raised an eyebrow at the dried stains on Prouvaire's hand and, wetting his handkerchief, offered it to him.

Prouvaire passed his load of roses to Courfeyrac and wiped his hand clean with thanks, then looked up as a shadow fell over them. The sun was still high overhead, though it was beginning to descend; the shadow had been only a cloud, the only one he had seen all day, white and fluffy, without the least threat of rain. He took a rose from the top of the pile and tossed it, smiling, to Combeferre. "Let's stay out a while longer."

 

It was not the first of June - there had been unavoidable business - but it was still early in the month when the landlord began to clear the rooms. The furniture would be sold; the books, the paintings, the other brick-a-brac, returned to the family; the reams of notepaper and journals, burned. The earthenware pots, he thought he would keep for himself; they were too cheap to bother anyone with, but might make decent herb planters once he'd thrown out the wilted mess of flowers.


End file.
